Looking Glass
by ijs1337
Summary: When the shuttle breaks apart over Tau Volantis, Ellie is separated from the rest of the group. Isaac goes to find her. When he does, he finds that something has happened to her. Something he is all too familiar with... Rated M for limb removal (among other things), adult themes, and because it's Dead Space. Please review.
1. Prologue

**Note: Well, first Dead Space fic ever. Also of note, this is a alternate tale of events on Tau Volantis. Trust me when I say things will get crazy. And likely angsty. Dead Space seems to do angst very well. Please review and comment. I own nothing from/relating to Dead Space.**

Looking Glass

Prologue

Isaac stumbled through the doorway, wiping the last few bits of goop from the insides of the giant Necromorph off his shoulder. He stopped and took in the small complex where the rest of the crew had holed up. It was somewhat spacious on the inside. Looking out a window on a far side, he thought he could see a landing pad and a small ship. Likely broken, but still there. Santos, Buckell, Rosen and Locke were sitting on crates, wrapped in blankets they'd scrounged from somewhere. Carver and Norton followed Isaac through. He took another look at the place, and noticed something. Someone was missing.

He spun around and grabbed Norton by the shoulder.

"Where is she?" He asked curtly.

"You mean Ellie?" Norton replied, his eyes narrowing.

"No, I mean Santos. Of course Ellie." Isaac said angrily.

"I don't know, Clarke. I thought she was with you."

Isaac was so stunned he couldn't answer for a few seconds.

"You thought she… let me get this straight. The shuttle splits in fucking half, she's on the half _opposite_ me, and you assume she's with me after the pieces land?" He demanded.

"All I knew was that she wasn't with us. So I-"

"Again, the shuttle splits in half, and she's on the other side, Norton."

"Well, what do you expect me to do, Clarke?" Norton snapped

"I don't know, maybe find her? Figure out where she is?" Isaac said.

"If I could, don't you think I'd be out there right now?"

Isaac had give him that one, however grudgingly. He turned, and his gaze found the ship. Now that he looked at it, it didn't seem that bad. A little beat, weathered, but certainly functional with a little fixing up. And if it was functional…

Carver stepped through the porthole of the ship, helmet disassembling around his face.

Isaac was sitting at a panel he'd pulled out, working it over with some cobbled-together tools.

"And you're fiddling with the scanners to do what exactly?" Carver asked.

"Pick up life signs." Isaac replied, not looking up.

"What good does that do?"

"Think about it for a second. Anything alive on this planet is near us and one of two things: Danik's men, or-"

"Or Ellie. Alright, that's actually a good plan." Carver admitted. "Provided you get the scanners working."

"I'm pretty sure I've almost got it."

"Aren't you supposed to be an engineer?" Carver asked, trying to push Isaac's buttons.

"See how much you learn when most of your college savings go to a church donation." Isaac replied, not rising to the bait.

Carver just shrugged and walked out.

Isaac looked back to be certain Carver had left, then turned the panel over.

He could see a flickering radial scan of the area in what he guessed was about a 200 yard radius. One small dot was in the middle, to the east, remaining exactly where it was. He turned the panel back down and pulled a small wire. Turning the panel back up, he watched the screen go dark. He set the panel screen-down and walked out of the ship. Facing east, he let his helmet assemble around his head, and set out.

**Note: Now, just so we're all clear, this is a somewhat AU series, so if anyone is alive who shouldn't be right now… tough, I guess. Also, if this beginning seems a little odd (and short) trust me when I say things will pick up (and be much longer) in the next chapter.**


	2. Chapter 1

**Note: There's going to be a lot of shifting perspective here. So everything is easily understandable, any section of italics is showing Ellie's viewpoint. Normal type is Isaac. Also, here's where most of that M rating is earned. Please review and comment. I own nothing of/relating to Dead Space.**

Looking Glass

Chapter 1

_Ellie drew the fabric tighter around her shoulders. It didn't do any good. It was a half-burned piece of felt. Not much it could do to protect against cold._

_She let her gaze drift to the body next to her. A Unitologist. She hadn't been able to see him until he'd been right in front of her. But he'd had the same problem. And she didn't exactly fight fair. The fact that he was dead and she had his gun was proof enough of that. She allowed herself have a small smile before letting reality reassert itself. She thought about maybe trying to strip the suit. It was worth a shot._

* * *

Isaac gazed at the holographic display. He'd pulled the data from the ship scanners before he'd left. He was getting closer, and the little blip he hoped was Ellie still hadn't moved much.

* * *

_Something was wrong. Ellie could tell. The snow around her seemed… shiny. Maybe a bit tinted. Everything did now. A sort of weird yellow. Not too drastically, but enough that she noticed. Was this some sort of hypothermic madness?_

"_No."_

_She spun around, looking for whoever had talked. But she saw no-one. _

_It sounded familiar though. Almost like… him._

* * *

Isaac checked the scanner again. He was close. Maybe 50 yards away. The whiteout made sure he had no hope of seeing her until he was right by her, but that wasn't a terrible issue. He turned off the display and kept moving. A series of beeps made him stop. He pulled up the scanner, and saw several new dots, new life signs. At least five. All converging on the one he was heading to.

"No. No, no."

He started running.

* * *

_She heard footsteps. The world was shifting between its normal color and that tint. Maybe it was them. Robert, John… Isaac. Maybe they'd found her somehow. Come for her._

_A display popped up, indicating a transmission. RIG-to-RIG. But not one to her. She was intercepting this one._

"_What do we do with her?" A voice asked. She didn't recognize it._

"_He told us to take her alive." Another voice said._

"_What good does it do us to keep something like her alive?"_

"_If we have her, he will follow." A third voice cut in. This one she did recognize. Danik._

_Unitologists._

_She forced herself to move, to get behind a small, broken-down truck. Peering over the edge, she saw them emerge from the blizzard. _

_But something was wrong. They shifted and jerked and mutated in her vision. Fanged mandibles exploded out of their helmets scattering their teeth and slicing their tongues. Their legs and arms stretched, tearing thru their suits. The fingers on their right hands fused together and the nails lengthened into talons. Their left hands grew over their guns, swallowing and shifting the pieces. For a second her vision cleared, and they looked normal. Well, as normal as Unitologist soldiers could look. Then one of them pointed at her and they opened fire. Normality faded, and they became the monsters again, their arm-guns spewing balls of fire and lightning and superheated air._

* * *

Isaac heard gunfire and tried to force his body to run faster. It didn't listen, but he tried anyway. He ran through the blizzard and right into the back of a Unitologist soldier. He grabbed the man's arm and broke it, then hauled him to his feet. The rest of the Unitologists turned and fired, but Isaac was protected. He had a shield. A shield that was currently screaming and bleeding on him, but a shield nonetheless.

He focused and took aim with his plasma cutter. Two quick shots sliced the legs off one soldier, and a third shot sent his head tumbling away. Sweeping the laser sights over the group, Isaac shot them to pieces. He let his shield, now nearly shot to bit by bullets, drop. He heard Ellie screaming and saw a soldier dragging her out from behind a broken-down truck.

He aimed and fired.

The soldier's forearm dropped into the snow. The man turned, yanked a pistol from his belt and took aim.

Isaac fired again.

The arm holding the pistol dropped into the snow, cut off at the shoulder.

The soldier started screaming incoherently and charged.

Isaac aimed and fired one last time.

The soldier dropped to his knees then fell flat, the top of his head shaved off.

Isaac released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

* * *

_Ellie looked at the dismembered monsters fading before her. She watched as they seemed to melt into the snow. When she couldn't bear to watch any longer, she looked up and saw the figure that had saved her._

_It was wearing a tattered dark blue snow suit. The suit was covered in blood stains and red and white Marker script. The middle visor was flickering on and off, and the bottom visor was completely dark. His left arm hung limply at his side, while his right held a tight grip on… a plasma cutter._

"_Oh, no. No, please. Not you. Not you too. No, please." She whispered to herself._

_The figure slowly walked closer, and it's helmet started to disassemble. But instead of separating and folding up like it should have, the helmet fell apart. Plates came loose or snapped off and tumbled into the snow, leaving a line of broken metal and glass behind the figure._

_Ellie shut her eyes. She didn't want to see what was beneath the helmet. She didn't want to. But she didn't have a choice._

_When she felt she heard the last piece of helmet crumble away, she let her eyes open as though someone else had grabbed her eyelids and tugged them apart._

_Beneath the helmet, eyes and mouth wide and emitting an unearthly glow, his face bloody and cold and dead, was Isaac._

**Note: Told you this was M for a reason, didn't I? Also, in case it isn't obvious, Ellie has a truly terrible case of Marker-itis. I figured that if Tau Volantis is THE Marker planet, there's probably the mother of all Markers there. So naturally, the mother of all Markers could give Marker madness to whomever it felt like. (I haven't beaten Dead Space 3 yet. I've only just crashed-landed. Hence, my making assumptions on plot points. Even if this is somewhat AU.)**


	3. Chapter 2

**Note: This is going to be mostly Ellie's perspective. There are some issues Marker-Isaac needs to bring up. He's kind of a dick like that. I own nothing of/relating to Dead Space. Please review and comment.**

Looking Glass

Chapter 2

_It was Isaac, but at the same time it wasn't. It couldn't be him. Not really. He couldn't be dead, and he wouldn't look as normal as he did now if he was dead and moving. _

_She was going crazy. That was it. She was going crazy. But if it was her crazy head, that meant she could still do something about it. She scrambled towards one of the puddles of Unitologist-monster and pulled a suddenly solid rifle out of the liquefying flesh. She swung around and aimed at the thing, the Not-Isaac._

"_You stay right where you are." She said, trying hard not to sound scared._

* * *

"You stay right where you are."

Isaac wasn't expecting her first reaction would be to point a rifle at him. But, she'd been out here, alone, for how long? He slowly held his hands up.

"Ellie, it's me. It's Isaac. Alright? Maybe you can, uh, not point that at me?"

* * *

"_How many times have you wanted to do that?" The Not-Isaac asked, snarling. It's voice… like the real him, over a bad transmission of a bad transmission._

_She didn't answer. She couldn't. The very idea of wanting to shoot him, the real him…_

"_Was that it?" It asked again. "One of two options, at the end? Leave me or shoot me?" It demanded. _

"_No." She protested, softly, weakly._

"_You know, that's something I've been wondering about. Why did you leave me?" It waited. "Why did you leave me?"_

"_I… I don't-" She started to say._

"_Don't what? Don't know?" It was angry now. Furious. "If you don't know, who does? Was it because I'm crazy? Because I still have that shit running around in my head? Did you maybe think I was still just a bit hung up on her? Because if that's what it was, I wasn't. I got over her. The only person I cared about was you. And you left."_

"_You wouldn't come with me." She said, more to herself than to it._

"_Oh, don't give me that semantics crap. You knew I wouldn't come with you, knew I couldn't come with you, and you went anyway." It came a few steps closer, dragging its feet through the snow. "You want to know what I think? I think I wasn't the real problem. I think it was you. I think you got a taste. Of being a part of something so much more important than a fucking maintenance workforce. You had the chance to go out and save the human race, and you just couldn't let the opportunity pass you by."_

"_Shut up!" She screamed, swinging the rifle back up, the laser dot stopping square in the middle of Its head._

* * *

"Shut up!" She screamed, swinging the rifle up, the laser dot stopping in the center of Isaac's head.

He stopped. Stopped moving and talking, and looked at her. Her tone, the way her eyes were wide, angry, scared all at the same time. He figured it out.

"Oh, no. Shit. No. Alright, Ellie if you can hear me right now, anything you think I've said, think I've done, it's not real. Okay? You understand? It's not real." He slowly slipped his plasma cutter into a loop around his waist, and held both hands up again, palms out. "It's not real." He tried again.

* * *

_It was tilting the plasma cutter in its hand, looking at the weapon intently._

"_You know what I did that first week? After you left?" It held the cutter underneath its chin, barrel pointing up, ready to tear through skull and brain with the simple squeeze of a finger. "I sat in the bathroom, like this. For a whole week. Barley ate, didn't sleep once. Just sat there, wondering if I ought to just stop dragging things out and get it all over with. And it wasn't because you left me." It let the cutter drop from beneath its chin, holding the weapon at its side again. "Well, that actually was a big part of it," It admitted, "but it wasn't the whole reason; it was what you leaving meant. What it meant about me. It meant that I was just some fucked up, sick man who couldn't mean anything to anyone." It started moving again; she'd let the dot drop away as she took in the Not-Isaac's accusations. She knew it wasn't him, and yet… "Can you even imagine what that feels like?" It asked softly. "To realize that you're so broken that the universe might be better off without you in it?"_

_She knew it wasn't real, but she couldn't help it._

"_I'm sorry." She whispered._

"_Yeah. Lot of good that does me now."_

"_Screw you. You're not even real." She snapped._

_It clapped, slowly. "Well, finally figuring things out? Ever wonder just how much is real, and how much isn't? Like those puddles of monster? Like me? How sure are you? That there's a real me out there? That I didn't kill myself after you left?"_

"_Shut up."_

"_What if none of this has actually happened? What if you're just some girl who wanted to save humanity no matter what, and your insane and dying alone on some broken ship?"_

_It crept closer. "That's all you are. Just an insane girl, dying alone out in the middle of nowhere, with no-one around to give a damn. Fitting, isn't it?"_

_She screamed in anger, lifted the rifle up, and shot it. It was blasted off its feet and fell back into the snow._

_Her vision slowly changed. The snow became white, the puddles turned into bodies. The Not-Isaac…_

_Stayed there, lying in the snow. The suit was changing. The Marker script was vanishing, the blue was changing to a dull tan. A pool of red slowly growing on the side, coloring the snow. His face shifted, from the glowing, bloody, dead one to…_

"_Oh, god." She whispered to herself, sinking to her knees, holding her hands over her mouth._

**Note: Yeah, Marker-Isaac is an ass. Hole. Also, on a personal note: not to rag on you readers, but almost 250 reads between two chapters, and no-one has anything to say? Like I said, not ragging, just expressing surprise at the numbers. Also also, search the image "Dead Space Ashes" by LunaticStar. It's a really great piece and the inspiration for this fic. So, shout-out: great drawing.**


	4. Chapter 3

**Note: Sorry for the long period of inactivity, but school and life were kinda holding me up. Please review and comment. I do not own Dead Space.**

Looking Glass

Chapter 3

Isaac gasped, and opened his eyes, feeling something below his chest shift inside him, making his side feel as though it were on fire. He put a hand to his side, and pursed his lips as the hand came away covered in drying blood. He slowly sat up, taking care not to move too far one way and open the wound more.

Then he saw her.

Ellie was sitting in the snow, legs drawn up, head resting on her knees, arms circling her legs. She was shaking, and tears were running down her face. She was whispering something to herself. He strained his ears over the wind.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry." She kept whispering.

Isaac slowly got to his feet and approached her. It wasn't that he was worried she might shoot him again. It was how else she might react after what she'd just gone through.

"Ellie?" He asked softly.

She slowly looked up at him, her eyes showing a terrible pain that everything she was doing right now couldn't express.

"Is it really-" She started to ask.

"Yeah, it's me. The real me." He crouched down, now just above eye level.

"God Isaac, I'm sorry-"

"Hey. You've got nothing to be sorry for. I've wanted to shoot myself sometimes to." He smirked slightly, before seeing the look on her face. A look of miserable horror. "Okay, I'll not try and lighten the mood again. Just… whatever you just did, you can't be blamed for it. Okay?" He'd put his hands on her shoulders, slowly drawing her into a protective hug.

She slowly shook her head.

"It's not just that, it's…everything. Leaving, moving on-"

"No, listen. Don't think about that right now. Don't think about anything except getting out here, getting someplace safe."

She looked at him, and smiled sadly.

"Someplace safe?" She asked.

"Well, relatively speaking." He admitted, taking the fact that she could make any sort of joke as good sign. "Now come on. Let's get you up."

He pulled to her feet, and had to drop to his own knee as the bullet hole in his side screamed at him.

"Really, sorry about that." Ellie said softly.

"Ah, it's nothing. Besides, Danic had me shot in the other side. Least I match now."

* * *

They came through the door, practically carrying each other. Isaac was slumping down from loss of blood, Ellie from the cold catching up to her.

Norton ran up to throw his arms around Ellie, and Isaac nearly slumped to the floor, before she broke the hug to catch him.

"What happened to you?" Carver asked.

"I got shot." Isaac replied.

"What do you mean you got shot?" Norton asked.

"I got shot means I got shot, genius. As in, a bullet was fired from a gun and it hit me." Isaac said.

"Oh, could you two just stop it for ten seconds?" Ellie asked wearily.

"We'll try and set a new record." Isaac replied. He pointed to the rest of the team. "Listen, get over there. Everyone else has, well, things more substantial than their clothes. See if you can't borrow something."

She limped off to the other, and Isaac briefly saw Santos get up draw Ellie into a quick hug.

Isaac turned to Norton and Carver.

"Tell me one of you has a pair of tweezers or something on you." He said.

* * *

A half hour later, Isaac was sitting on a table, his torso stripped bare, digging the final bullet fragment out. Gritting his teeth against the pain on a small piece of scrap he'd found, he drew the tiny bit of metal out and set it down on a small bit of cloth, next to another four fragments.

Isaac reached over to grab a small laser tool he'd instructed Carver to build. He held it against the wound, now open and ragged after his digging about in it, and pulled the trigger. He screwed his eyes shut as the laser cauterized his flesh, searing it back together.

"Jesus." Norton whispered.

Carver nodded appreciatively. "Not bad for a engineer, Clarke."

Isaac spat out the bit of scrap and taped a patch of gauze over the fresh mark. "Yeah, well, I had an old girlfriend. Medical officer. Guess a few things rubbed off."

"Where's she now?"

"Dead. She was on the Ishimura."

He quickly limped his way into the nearby suit station before the conversation could go any further. He'd long since moved past Nicole. He didn't need to bring her up again.

**Note: I realize this is a bit shorter than average, and a bit of a odd place to end the chapter, but I really can't think of a way to take it from the end here to where I want to go in a single chapter (that is, not end it here and continue the plot.) As such, we end with character development and character references. **


	5. Chapter 4

**Note: Sorry for the long gap, but these last two weeks have been very long.**

**Please review and comment. I do now own Dead Space.**

Looking Glass

Chapter 4

Isaac stood in the cold on the landing platform, looking over the ship he'd yanked the scanner from. It wasn't too old, nor too broken. It could work again. Fly again. It'd take some parts that would be hard to get a hold of, but it could be made to work. And if they could get a ship working… that would change everything.

* * *

"Well?" Norton asked as Isaac came through the door.

"It's busted, but not beyond repair." Isaac said. "I could get it going again. It'd take some parts that'll be a bitch to get, but I'm pretty sure I can get that thing flying again."

"And if we have a ship…" Ellie started to say, sounding almost excited.

"We have free reign of the planet." Carver finished. "Go anywhere, go quickly. We get that ship going, we can get this done, no problem."

"Or we can, I don't know, get off this rock before we all die." Norton muttered angrily.

"Doesn't matter what we do with it until it's working." Isaac offered.

* * *

_She scrambled on her hands and knees behind a large crate. She pressed herself against it, losing herself in shadow, trying not to make a sound._

"_Ellie…" The voice called. "Ellie…" The voice. A bad transmission of a bad transmission. She heard slow, dragging footsteps. "I'd ask where you're hiding, but you've never answered that one, have you?" It was getting closer. "How about why? Can you answer that for me? Why are you running from me? Hiding from me?" The footsteps continued, getting closer and closer, the voice louder. "Do you even know? Are you hiding from me, or from what I am?" It was just on the other side of the crate now. She could hear the light crackling inside Its head, hear that weird static sound that it seemed to emit. She screwed her eyes shut. "Maybe that's the question we both really need to ask." It said, almost as though it was talking to itself. She heard it moving, walking away. Eventually she couldn't hear it anymore._

_She slowly opened her eyes. She peeked over the edge of the crate. It was gone. She was alone. She ducked back behind the crate and sighed in relief, her eyes blinking shut again, just for a second. She opened her eyes again, and It was there, kneeling in front of her. Its hands shot out and seized her shoulders. It lifted her off the ground, turned around and slammed her against the wall. It pulled itself closer. Its nose was almost touching hers now._

"_WHAT AM I, ELLIE?" The Not-Isaac screamed._

* * *

A sharp scream snapped Isaac out his half-awake sleep he'd forgotten he'd fallen into. He jerked in his chair and saw Ellie bolt upright, turning herself over and scrambling away from her spot on the floor, pushing herself into a corner.

Isaac practically threw himself out of the chair, rushing over to her. Carver and Norton weren't far behind him. Ellie pressed herself against the wall, eyes wide and darting before they focused on Isaac. Her breathing, already quick and drawn, went to a step below hyperventilation.

Isaac knelt down in front of her and put his hands on her shoulders.

"Ellie, listen to-" She knocked his hands away and he had to stop and grip her again. "Ellie, just calm-" She half-pushed him, her eyes starting to dart about again, head jerking with their movements. "Ellie, look at me." Isaac said, reaching out again. He cupped his hands around her face and held it still, focused on his. "_Look at me._ It's alright. It's over, whatever it was."

She finally seemed to come out of whatever she'd been trapped in. Her breathing slowed and her eyes settled.

"What the hell was that?" Carver asked.

"Nothing. It was nothing." Ellie said weakly. "Just a dream. Just a bad dream, that's all."

* * *

"Y'know, I find this funny. Really, I do." Isaac offered, his voice slightly muffled by the fact that his torso was halfway inside the controls of the ship.

"How's this funny, exactly?" Carver asked, poking at a panel he assumed was connected to the ship's guns.

"Well, I was an engineer, remember? Worked on ships for a living, before all this." There was a spark, and various lights and panels started flickering to life.

Isaac drew himself out of the ship's guts, face slightly dirty and spotted with tiny bits of burn residue. He was smiling to himself. "So, here we are, on a frozen hellhole in the middle of nowhere, the future of humanity in the balance… and it all comes down to fixing a ship."

Carver sat back and thought about it.

"You're right. That is pretty funny."

* * *

_She sat there, pouring over records. No holograms; it was all paper. And some of these people, whoever they'd been, had truly terrible handwriting. She bent in close, trying to discern the 'I's from the '1's. Eye-straining though it was, it was a distraction. It let her think about other things. It let her shut-_

"_What is this you're trying to do now?" The voice asked, right in her ear. She could almost feel the light pouring out of Its mouth, like someone was shining a dull flashlight on her cheek. "Bury me deep? Lock me up in mental cells and toss the keys away? Act like I don't exist?" She reached out to turn the page, and Its hand clamped around her wrist, yanking it and forcing her to turn her head and look at it. His face. Dead, black veins, light pouring from the mouth and eyes. "None of that'll work. It didn't work for him, and it won't work for you." She yanked her arm from its grip and turned back to the book. She was on the next page when It reached out, grabbed her jaw, and twisted her head so she was facing it. "Put me in cages? I have all the keys. Bury me in the back of your head? I just climb out and up, right back to where I was. Act like I don't exist? What good does that do you? You tell yourself I'm not here, but I'm here anyways, hands on you, voice in your ear-"_

"_Shut up." She said. Trying to make her head do what she was saying out loud._

"_You're not getting rid of me, Ellie. You can't get rid of me. I'll be here, we'll keep having our little chats. You might as well just accept it, it'll make things easier for the both of us." It leaned forward, letting go of her face, resting its hands on its thighs. "You answer the question yet? You figure out what I am?" It's face. It could've been smirking._

_She grabbed the record book and hurled it at the face. It sailed right thru. Not-Isaac gave a little wave and faded out of existence._

* * *

They came through the door just in time to see Ellie grab a book off the table and throw it at nothing. Isaac let his familiarity with what she was going through, along with tact, keep him from saying anything. Carver, oddly enough, followed his lead.

"Hey, I think I might have seen some sort of part in there the other day." Carver said, pointing to a connected warehouse.

"You think you might've-" Isaac began to ask.

"Not all of us can be rocket scientists, Clarke. Care to lend your expertise?"

* * *

Isaac figured the second Carver turned around in the middle of the hallway to the warehouse that they weren't in there to maybe find a useful spare part.

"So, what is it this time?" He asked.

"I know." Carver replied.

"You're going to need to get a bit more specific."

"I know how you got shot."

Isaac paused at that.

"We've got a planet of corpses that died with their guns in-hand, and angry religious nutjobs. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out."

"Cut the bullshit, Clarke." Carver tapped his snow suit. "These might be built for extreme temps, but they're pretty tough too. A bullet doesn't go though one like it went through yours unless it's a really good gun or you get shot point-blank. I know no-one but us on this planet has guns that good, and I know you're too good to let Unitologists or those things get that close. Which leaves me with one explanation." He didn't elaborate. He just looked. His face could convey volumes of words when he wanted it to.

"What are you getting at?" Isaac said after a minute.

"Of for the love of… Clarke, she shot you. _You_." He emphasized it with a finger jab to Isaac's chest. "If she could shot you of all people, at the very start of whatever the hell this is, what's she gonna be able to do later? When it's even worse? And what're we-"

He couldn't finish. Isaac grabbed him by his collar and swung him against a wall. He pulled himself close, almost literally face-to-face.

His face. It had the same expression he'd had in the apartment. That one of completely unreasonable determination, of furious, mad violence lurking just beneath the surface.

"Don't you go there." Isaac hissed. "Don't you even _think_ it, you understand?"

It was so sudden, so _not Clarke_, that all Carver could do was nod.

**Note: Well. I originally hadn't planned for much more in terms of Ellie hallucinations, but hearing how some of you were looking for more to come, and realizing that Marker madness is not a one-time thing, I just had to come up with more bits. **


	6. Chapter 5

**Note: I'm profusely sorry for the incredible delay in updating, but school, life, and reality have hit me really hard this past month. Like a tank, airliner, and freight train, respectively. I won't go much into specifics, but let's just say that four final projects for college and a relative going into hospice care do not make for a writing-conducive environment. But, I'm back. So, please review and comment. I do not own Dead Space nor any affiliated characters.**

Looking Glass

Chapter 5

"_You probably think you're clever, don't you? Probably think you're tough, holding out they way you've been." The voice whispered, disembodied, in her ear. "But you're not. Not clever, not tough, and certainly not holding out."_

"_Shut up." She whispered. The door to the landing pad slowly ground its way up the frame, and the Not-Isaac walked through, turning to stare at her._

"_It's just a matter of time, Ellie. Sooner or later, your walls are going to start falling; the cracks will show. And when they do, I'll be there."_

_She lunged from the desk, scattering journals and papers. She had an old, fairly sharp writing tool in one hand. Tackling the Not-Isaac, she forced it down and stabbed at its head with the tool. It shifted and weaved, but she was getting closer each time. She hit it with her free hand and raised the tool high, to plunge it down into the Not-Isaac's eye socket, into it's damn, stupid, fake brain. _

_Something grabbed her arm and yanked her off the Not-Isaac. She turned her head and saw a red-and-black monstrosity, covered in scraps of fabric and armor, eyes glowing red, a long scar going across what was left of its face. It drew an arm back and hit her square in the head. She dropped to the floor. The jagged edges and yellow color bled out of her vision. As she slipped into unconsciousness, she could hear Isaac, the real Isaac, starting to yell angrily._

* * *

"I'm not going to apologize for saving your life, Clarke." Carver said stiffly.

"I'm not asking you to. I'm asking you to not go any further." Isaac replied.

"What the hell does that even-"

"You know what I mean, Carver." Isaac said angrily, stepping close to the soldier.

"She was trying to kill you, Isaac. She wasn't shooting you in the side this time, she was trying to shove a pen into your brain."

"I remember Carver, I was there. I also don't care what she tried to do."

"Why not?"

Isaac sighed, and thought for a few seconds, considering how to phrase what he wanted to say.

"Do you even know what it's like?" he finally asked.

"What what is like?"

"What it's like to have a Marker try and make you do what it wants. I know you've had problems, but has one ever tried to make you do something?"

"No." Carver admitted grudgingly.

"It's like nothing else. It's something you know isn't real, something you know you can't listen to, but you can't _not_ listen to it either. You almost don't have a choice. Half the time, you don't even know what it's trying to get you to do until it's too late. And then, you have to live with what it's made you do. And right now, whatever's on this planet wants me dead. And it wants Ellie to do the dirty work. Now, let's get on thing straight here: I'm not going to let her do that. Ever."

"Why? Y'know, aside from the fact that you'd be dead if she did?"

"Because then she'd have to live with herself afterward." Isaac turned and headed for the doorway to the landing pad.

"You're seriously going out there again?"

"Way I see it, there's only one way to help her now: get the ship fixed, use it to get to where we need to go, and end this."

* * *

Isaac flicked a few switches, and the consoles came to life. The engines of the ship slowly warmed up and droned.

"Okay. I think we're as ready as we'll ever be. Go get everyone else. I'll check the ship all over one more time, make sure nothing important seems like it'll fall off or turn off mid-flight." Isaac said.

Carver pushed himself away from the oxygen tanks and walked out of the ship.

Isaac waited until he heard the door to the facility open, and went to work in earnest.

Looking around the engines, Isaac could see Santos helping Ellie and Buckel into the ship. He opened up his RIG display and shifted to special section.

* * *

Carver watched and Buckel dropped into one of the seats. He opened up a link to Isaac.

"Hey, Marker Boy, we're waiting on you. Get in here."

"Yeah, I'll be right there."

Carver closed the link and walked into the cockpit. Suddenly, he heard the outer doors slam shut, and felt the ship slowly lift off the landing pad.

"What the hell?" He turned to Norton. "Did you-"

"No, that wasn't me." Norton quickly said.

"Why are we going up? In case you haven't noticed, we're missing someone."

"I don't know," Norton said angrily, running to the controls, "give me a second to… oh shit."

"What?"

"Something's controlling the ship remotely."

"Remotely? How the… son of a bitch. Clarke."

* * *

Isaac turned off the holographic controls and started walking. The course was set in. The ship would break through the atmosphere in the next fifteen minutes. They'd be able to come down in about half a day, salvage a shock drive, get themselves back to Earth.

Then, his suit com came on, and he knew he was made.

"Isaac, what the hell are you doing?" Norton asked.

"What I have to."

"So, locking us in a ship only you can control? You have to do that?"

"It's temporary. Remote operation wears off in about half a day. Ship's yours after that."

"I'm ordering you to-"

"I don't take orders from you, Norton. Besides, I thought you wanted to leave. What are you complaining about?"

* * *

_Something wasn't right. The ship was lifting off. Leaving. But Isaac wasn't inside._

"_We need to go back." She said to no one in particular. "We can't go without him."_

"_It's not exactly up to us right now, Ellie." Carver called._

_That made her stop. Think. Think back. To Titan Station._

"_No. No, no, no, no. Not again."_

* * *

Isaac cut Norton's connection. He was about to keep walking when another contact opened up.

"Isaac? Isaac, what are you doing?" Ellie asked.

Isaac took a deep breath, composing himself.

"Ellie, I-"

She cut him off. She'd seen, head all she had to. His face, his tone. Everything about him was showing exactly what he was doing.

"No. No, please. Not this. Not-"

"Ellie, just listen. I-"

"No!" She was screaming at him now, her tone twisting from anger to fear and pain and loss. He could see Carver moving toward her in the background. Tears were starting to form in her eyes. "No, don't you dare! Don't you do this! Don't you dare do this to me again!" The tears were flowing, running from her mismatched eyes. "Don't you do this again, you bastard." She pleaded softly.

"Ellie, I'm sorry." Isaac offered. He slowly reached out, as though she were there in front of him, behind glass or a door, not separated by a widening gulf of his own creation, visible to him only by a hologram. "I'm so, so sorry. I just… I can't risk it."

"Can't risk what?" She asked, barely able to whisper.

"That whatever is on this planet that's got into your head, that it'll make you succeed. That it'll make you kill me."

"That's-"

"Because if you did succeed, you'd have to live with that. For however long you'd have left. And no one can live with that. Killing someone they care about. Not even you."

She was reaching out now too.

"Please. Please. Don't do this."

Isaac let his arm drop, and had his helmet re-assemble itself. To hide the vid-connection, if only for a second. So he couldn't see her face as she saw him do this. Send her away against her will and head off to certain death. For the second time. With so much more between them now.

"I'm sorry." He said. The helmet pulled itself into shape around his head, the imaging system activating. "I love you."

Those lost three words were distorted by the helmet. He cut the link and began to walk again. Tears of his own started sliding down his cheeks. He realized he'd stopped walking. He tightened his grip on his plasma cutter and forced his feet to move.

**Note: Well, this is it. More or less. I might, extreme, can't-be-overstated emphasis on "might", continue the base story from this point (I had some ideas on an alternate big twist and ending fight, an idea that doesn't involve moons (no disrespect to the writers at Visceral, it was just an idea I had)) but in all likelihood, I won't. So, for all intents and purposes, consider this to be closing chapter of Looking Glass. Man. This is the first story I've actually started that I've finished officially. Hope I still have some working fireworks in the basement to celebrate.**

**Before I end this, a thank you to all who favorited, followed, and reviewed Looking Glass. Knowing you liked the story that much was motivation that made me carry on with it. So again: thank you.**


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